Mr. Cupcakes, owned by Clifton baker John Manganiotis, above, is a fixture in The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack.

Simon, which operates 16 malls in its Northeast region, including The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack and Newport Center in Jersey City, like other mall developers began recruiting independent retailers during the recession as national chains closed stores or cut back on expansion. Simon discovered that those smaller, local merchants - the types of businesses they might not have considered before the recession - were valuable mall tenants. Now, with national retailers expanding again, Simon wants to continue to recruit local entrepreneurs.

"This is a very important, dynamic change to the way we look at our business," said Ron Hanson, Northeast regional senior vice president for Simon. As a result, he said, Simon is going to continue to recruit non-traditional mall tenants, even though demand for mall space is improving.

Next Wednesday Simon will hold a leasing expo for small business owners at The Shops at Riverside, the first time it has hosted such an event in North Jersey. The fair will showcase leasing, advertising, and promotion opportunities at all of Simon's Northeast malls, and mall managers and leasing executives will be present. Franchisors with new business opportunities, as well as small business organizations and lenders, will also make presentations.

Simon began holding these expos in malls around the country about three years ago, during one of the worst years for retailers. Some of the retailers recruited then turned out to be so successful that the company has expanded the sessions.

In the fall of 2009, three North Jersey malls - The Shops at Riverside, and Westfield Garden State Plaza and Paramus Park, both in Paramus - were actively recruiting local merchants to fill vacant spots in their shopping centers. At Riverside, one of the merchants recruited, Mr. Cupcakes, operated by Clifton baker John Manganiotis, has become a fixture.

While most of the local merchants recruited by Westfield Garden State Plaza have been replaced by national chains, as retailers have begun expanding once again, a Teaneck merchant, Buddy Kurzweil, who relocated to Paramus Park mall in 2009 is still in business there.

During the recession, Hanson said, Simon was able to "structure deals for those local retailers in a way that was more suitable to their needs and more affordable for them."

Local retailers tend to need concessions such as shorter-term leases, or smaller spaces. Some local retailers in North Jersey in the past were also given staggered leases by area malls that started out lower in the first years and gradually increased to the market rate.

The average rent at Simon's U.S. malls was $39.99 as of the end of July, and the average sales per square foot was $554, according to the company's financial reports. Occupancy was 94.2 percent, up from 93.6 percent a year earlier.

It is difficult to compare average mall rents with downtown rents, because no central reporting agency keeps track of rents in all of the North Jersey downtowns. Rents tend to vary from town to town based on the amount of vacant space, and two retailers on the same block can be paying dramatically different rents. But before the recession, downtown rents for new leases in North Jersey averaged between $20 a square foot to over $50 a square foot in the more expensive downtowns, such as Ridgewood or Englewood.

Businesses can register for the expo at www.simon.com/northeastbusinessexpo.